June 20, 2006

TruthNot Explains All

TruthNot, having promised "a more comprehensive accounting" of their "Rove Indicted" debacle from last May 13, delivers a compelling graphic explaining why Special Counsel Fitzgerald can't be stopped in his pursuit of the Evildoers.

At least they remain true to the TruthNot motto - Speak Truth to Power, deliver BS to everyone else.

With almost as much seriousness, Marc Ash provides some text telling us that yes, Rove really was indicted. The short version is a re-hash of the fantasy still prevailing among lefties who can't let go - Rove has given up the key evidence on Cheney, who will be getting his come-uppance within the next 24 business hours (i.e., at about half-past never).

The TruthNot piece makes no sense, but let's highlight this special nonsense:

The electronic
communication from Fitzgerald to Luskin, coming immediately on the
heels of our Monday morning, June 12 article "Sealed vs. Sealed" that
became the basis for the mainstream media's de facto exoneration of
Karl Rove was, our sources told us, negotiated quickly over the phone
later that afternoon.

Pretty good inside stuff, yes? The phone rings, Luskin is on the line, and the TruthNot source is there!

But wait! Who, other than Marc Ash, has forgotten their classic lead from the May 13 piece?

Special
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the
offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During
the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging
the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to
investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed
one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get
his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the
meeting said Saturday morning.

Robert
Luskin, Rove's attorney, did not return a call for comment. Sources
said Fitzgerald was in Washington, DC, Friday and met with Luskin for
about 15 hours to go over the charges against Rove...

How could sources who can tip TruthOut to a single phone call be wrong about a fifteen hour meeting? Or does TruthOut still fantasize that such a meeting occurred? Well, here is their current punchline:

Our sources
continue to maintain that a grand jury has in fact returned an
indictment. Our sources said that parts of the indictment were read to
Karl Rove and his attorney on Friday, May 12, 2006.

Wow - they spent fifteen hours reading "parts of the indictment" to Karl Rove and his attorney? That raises the bar on "tedium" to absurd heights - "Like watching paint dry" will never mean "boring" again.

Let's close with this:

That leaves the
most important question: If our sources maintain that a grand jury has
returned an indictment - and we have pointed to a criminal case number
that we are told corresponds to it - then how is it possible that
Patrick Fitzgerald is reported to have said that 'he does not
anticipate seeking charges against Rove at this time?' That is a very
troubling question, and the truth is, we do not yet have a definitive
answer.

They don't have a definitive answer, but... the trial is not until next January, prosecutors aren't normally in the business of announcing non-indictments, so Keep Hope Alive!

MORE: J Pod thinks this is all about traffic and donor support at TruthNot. Here is an idea - Marc Ash should hint that Evil Forces are trying to quash and discredit their story, and it is only his readers and fellow fantasists that stand between Truth and the Dark Side. Ahh, yes.

GOOD POINT - I may have misinterpreted the graphic stolen shamelessly from a commenter at Donklephant. Maybe TruthNot is showing us how Evil Dick Cheney can be unstoppable in his intimidation of the Truth-Tellers. You make the call.

PROPS TO DU: A Democratic Underground sleuth debunked the TruthOut "sealed versus sealed" fantasy a while back. The gist - in the DC circuit, cases are assigned a docket number in sequence. A sealed case will still get a number in sequence, but will be missing from the docket.

And the case on which TruthNot pins their hopes, 06 cr 128, falls between two cases assigned numbers on May 16 and May 17.

Since Rove was indicted on May 12, that does not work.

Here is an excerpt. Good job.

The criminal docket doesn't list a 06-CR-128; it's completely missing
from the docket. This is typical for sealed cases in the DC courts.
However, we can tell when it was filed based on the dates of the
surrounding cases. Here's the complete list of criminal cases filed in
the DC district court from May 10 - May 23, 2006.

No
06-CR-128 listed at all. But the case before it, CR-127, was filed on
May 16, 2006. And the case after it, CR-129, was filed on May 17, 2006.
Therefore, we know that 06-CR-128 was filed either May 16 or May 17th.
According to Leopold's original story, Rove was indicted (secretly) on
May 12th. In his new "Sealed vs. Sealed" story, he says "As of Friday
afternoon that indictment, returned by the grand jury the week of May 10th,
remains under seal.. The case number is "06 cr 128." But based on the
dates in the docket, that case cite CANNOT be the Rove indictment. This
case was filed on Tuesday, May 16 or Wed., May 17th - NOT May 12th
(when Fitz supposedly met w/the grand jury), and NOT during the week of
May 7 - May 13th.

JUST IN: Don't ignore the possibility of time traveling aliens. I thought they were working for Karl, but maybe a rival faction interceded.

Well, I'm kinda bummed, 'cause the new comment thread is pretty dull. TruthOut has apparently banned so many commenters that there's not even any rabble-rousers left. The regulars' ability to reconcile contradictory information is impressive (as noted from the last post of the previous thread):

If the grand jury gave the indictment to Fitzgerald, who then read the indictment to Luskin on May 12 giving Luskin 24 hours or one business day for Rove to get his act together before file, May 16 is exactly when the indictment would be filed with the court. Think about it.

. . . but it's not nearly as entertaining as watching them try to rebut a YGBSM comment.

Seixon's on a roll.
Here's a review of all Jason Leopold's reporting on Plame since October 2003. Everyone of these lying tales is sourced to the VIPS (a group of lying ex-CIA guys linked to Joe Wilson).
"There's a lot to be revealed and said about Jason Leopold's earlier reporting, in addition to the Karl Rove indictment story. One could speculate that the unwillingness of Truthout to reveal their sources may have to do with the fact that those same sources may have been involved in virtually all of Truthout's reporting on the issue going back into October 2005.

The Leopold "Missing Emails" series seems to be partially or completely baseless, while promoting the idea that Cheney is the focus of the probe, a notion that has only come from journalists connected to VIPS: Jason Leopold and Richard Sale. Ray McGovern, EIR (where McGovern contributes), and Leopold's reporting repeated as late as last month the claim that Cheney is the real target of the probe.

This is not a coincidence, it is a planned and orchestrated propaganda campaign."

There's been a scandal brewing as it turns out Kos has been endorsing candidates his partner, Jerome Armstrong, has received consulting contracts from, and it has turned out that Armstrong has an unsavory record of pumping stocks he had an interest in for which he entered into an SEC settlement agreement. Riehl notes that Armstrong also had a history as an astrologist and analyzes why the netroots will fail. I love this conclusion:
"I predict the Dems will take all fifty states when Venus aligns with Jupiter and kisses Mars butt. Pardon me if I don't ask the latest Democrat wizard-kid what he has to say about that."www.riehlworldview.com/ca...troot.html